Persian Perversion: “Shahs Of Sunset” Goes Too Far
by Kia Makarechi
Yesterday, Iranians around the world celebrated the passage of the Persian New Year, Nowruz. Like thousands of other Iranian-Americans, I flew to the greater Los Angeles area to spend the holiday with my family, visiting relatives, exchanging gifts, and soaking up strong doses of Persian culture.
Typically, the cultural component comes from older members of the family, who remind us of our roots by reading and reciting the poetry of Hafez and Rumi. They have a special fondness for passages that can be sculpted into New Year predictions, resulting in what may be the most highbrow horoscopes on Earth.
This year, however, conversation has been dominated by a much more current cultural artifact: Ryan Seacrest and Bravo’s new “reality” TV show “Shahs of Sunset,” which applies the “Jersey Shore” formula — identify an ethnic community’s most ridiculous characters, commence ridicule — to L.A.’s Persian-American population.
Not surprisingly, the individuals featured on “Shahs of Sunset” fall on the superficial and materialistic end of the cultural spectrum, which is saying something in Los Angeles. They’re not the kind of people most Iranian-Americans want representing our community. And yet I resisted at first when family members and others began imploring me to write a piece denouncing “Shahs.” What could I say, I asked them, that hadn’t been said by countless other Iranian-Americans at media outlets large and small? The show trades on stereotypes like a cheap trick, sure, but doesn’t every reality TV show? If the caricature of Italian-American culture on “Jersey Shore” doesn’t offend us, how can we blame Ryan Seacrest for extracting a profit from the most asinine members of our community?
Read the entire article here.
